In the Picture
by Coke Cam
Summary: When Jane loses everything and teeters on the brink, Maura devises a plan to keep her best friend alive and the woman who can't lie finds a way to conceal her love for the sake of her best friend's life. But secrets have a way of getting out...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I usually write under another name, but thought it would be interesting to do a Stephen King/Richard Bachman experiment – just put the story out there and let it stand on its own two feet without any associations, followers or expectations. (Pretty crazy considering how much I like reviews, but there you go.) **

**AU in that this story follows Season 3 and we don't yet know what will happen. It hits the angst meter really hard right out of the gate, so buckle your seatbelt, but I swear you'll find the sweetest, most heartwarming, romantic Rizzles resolution you could ever hope for.**

* * *

You're exhausted beyond reason and you know your body is aching and torn, but somehow at the sight of those two tiny dark brown eyes blinking up at you, everything which came before, even your name, is wiped away. This child has no language beyond the beat of your heart, where he has pressed his tiny, perfectly formed hand, and marked you as his forever.

"You are loved," you whisper. "You are loved, always and forever, but there's someone else who loves you more. And she's late."

Jane Rizzoli has never been exceptionally punctual and when you suggested that she might be late for the birth of her own child, it hadn't entirely been a joke. You didn't know how accurate you would be though.

There will be three of you now but you already know what that will feel like. There had been three of you from the moment that Lt. Col. Casey Jones had returned from the hospital, wobbly and unsteady but on his own two legs. You had been happy for Jane, as a best friend should be, and happy for him as well, as a doctor would for anyone in need of healing. You had held your breath, concerned at first that things might fall apart without the excitement and separation of a wartime romance, but the shoe never dropped.

Jane finally had a chance at a stable relationship, something her family hadn't prepared her for, and not just stealing moments in email and Skype. Casey liked you—he liked you a lot—and it was flattering. He appreciated how had always stuck by Jane, making her face up to the dangers and uncertainty ahead. He wasn't like some boyfriends, sensing a rival and staking his territory. He respected your place as the best friend, made a point of insisting that you still spend time together—girls night at the Robber or pizza and yogurt on bad case days, even going so far as to place the order himself. Jane was happy and calm in a way you hadn't seen before.

Then the morning she came sneaking down to the morgue, looking like a guilty teenager, to show you the ring even before she told her mother, you remembered the definition you had heard once of love: doing whatever was best for the other person, regardless of how it made you feel. So you said how happy you were, you supported your friend, held the bouquet, and steeled yourself for things to change.

But actually…they didn't. You still worked together, you spent nearly every day with her, and weekends too when Casey traveled for the Reserves. It was comfortable and safe—you were like a friendly remora to their couple, clinging on for the ride. You were happy too in your way, happy like Splenda. It was close enough, almost the real thing, barely an aftertaste. It was enough to be near by, to have the edge of your emotional hunger dulled.

And then the universe imploded.

After everything Casey had survived—Afghanistan, bombings, shrapnel, surgery, recovery—a drunk driver on his fifth DUI had erased Jane's marriage, her happiness, and her hope for a family. You sat with her at the hospital, silently analyzing what you should do. If you could just stem her emotional hemorrhaging here and now, cut the losses and somehow return to what had been before, then she could survive. You counseled her against being the one to identify the body. You were a doctor, you knew him personally, it could be you, but she said she wouldn't pretend he had never existed. When they summoned her to the viewing window, you let her go, feeling her hand slide away from yours.

That was when you noticed the blood. It was just a faint trace in the seat of the plastic hospital chair, but there would be more before the miscarriage was over and Jane lost the child she hadn't even known she was carrying.

You stayed with her, held her hand through the D&C, signed all the paperwork, and took her home that night. You might not have Jane's instincts or understand half of the jokes that Frost cracks or know how normal people are supposed to relate, but you know when something is wrong with Jane. You are attuned to her the way Mercury follows the sun, and something was very, very wrong.

She lay on the couch so still that you knew she couldn't be asleep. You tried to get her to eat, even just to drink one of her beers that you always kept in the refrigerator, but she was nearly catatonic. She wouldn't move to the guest room and you couldn't carry her, so you put two blankets over her and pulled an arm chair around so you could read with one eye on her until you drifted off at last.

At 3 a.m. you heard noises in the bathroom. The door was locked when you tried it gently, fingertips brushing the knob. Jane's blazer, holster and badge were on the kitchen island where you had set them. The holster was empty.

You began to talk to her through the door, very quietly at first, about the kitchen cabinets. You honestly couldn't think of anything else to start with, but you knew she had an opinion about them because of the way she stopped and raised one deadly eyebrow. It wasn't really your fault, you said. You just liked the way the beveled molding looked and it made you happy and really, you haven't been happy very much in your life. Not until you met Jane.

There was nothing that could be said that would take away her grief. All you could do was remind her that there was one person in the world who loved her more than anyone, one person for whom she was the sky and the stars combined. You told her that you didn't understand and you couldn't possibly know what she was feeling now, but that if you ever lost her, then you would know how she felt and that would be too much to bear. You weren't as strong as she was.

Very softly, you heard a click and then another.

You breathed out and moved gingerly away from the door. Now that Jane realized you took all the bullets out while she was asleep, she might very well come charging through the door and you would rather not be standing too closely.

That was the moment you heard the first sob. It took you three minutes to pick the lock with a bobby pin, something you taught yourself to do one evening simply because you found the instructions on WikiHow and had always wondered. You found Jane curled on the bare tile floor with the bathmat inexplicably tossed into the tub—inexplicable that is until you realize that even in the midst of this desperate grieving act, she didn't want to mess up your carpeting.

As if she could ever remove herself from your heart.

You lay with her, pulled her into the protective curve of your body, slid your arm under her head, as if you could absorb all the pain and loss within yourself. You couldn't, no, you knew that, but you also knew you had to try. Somewhere between that inky black abyss and the first thin crack of dawn, your prayers were answered. You woke to find Jane's eyes filled with a hollow fire. She had been awake for hours, simply staring at you. She needed you.

"I can try again," she said.

You were startled but didn't show it. It's Jane's nature not to give up, but there was something almost desperate in her eyes.

"Try…again?" you asked.

Casey had taken steps before his surgery, she explained, in case they wanted children, before he knew if he would even be able to come back for her. He knew how much it meant to her. Even with him…gone, there were procedures—she could try again.

Now was not the time to ask Jane what she was thinking or if she wanted to take a moment to reconsider. This was the flailing, desperate effort of a woman who was drowning within sight of land and you would not fail her.

So you went along, primarily as the best friend but also as the doctor you can never fully stop being. You had approved of the specialist (after a search of credentials, board certifications, and a few quick emails to mutual colleagues) and her reputation, which was as a compassionate fertility consultant, always a tricky field. Compassion had been essential though for a doctor having to inform Det. Jane Rizzoli that there were things about her biology, things beyond anyone's control, that made it extremely unlikely she would be able to carry a child to term.

You looked in her eyes and all you saw was the bathroom door shutting. Without thinking twice, not that any thought was needed, you said:

"I'll do it. It's only nine months, it can be me."

Yes, it was nine months—nine more months for Jane, nine months for her to remember why she wanted to live, nine months to inch upwards out of the abyss and towards some kind of hope. If you could force her to stay alive that long, then she could survive.

It was some sign of how much Jane was still reeling from her loss that she agreed, and in a way you have to admit that you forced the issue. You made it easy, removed all the decisions, made all the appointments, and explained everything in a perfectly logical, medically sound, a fait accompli sort of way.

When the embryo took on the first attempt, it was as if the universe had put its blessing on the matter, clearing a path out of the darkness. Jane was slowly coming back to life, finally mentally present again, able to think and feel so long as it involved the baby. In the doctor's office, watching the black ultrasound monitor, her dull, impassive stare had broken with wonder at the sight of the tiny fluttering heart and she exhaled as if she had been holding her breath every moment since the funeral and she took a great, shuddering lungful of air.

"That's…that's my baby," she whispered.

"Yes," you whispered back. "You're going to have a baby."

Jane bent her head, gently pressing her ear to your stomach, not yet rounded, and simply closed her eyes until the nurse quietly withdrew, shutting the door behind her. Then she began to cry.

That was that first tiny spark of emotion that you cupped her hands around, blowing as gentle as a breath, coaxing Jane back to life until the fire could sustain itself. When the nurse brought you the little black and white picture, all static and snow, Jane held it in her hands as if her life depended on it.

It did.

You had agreed to wait until after the first trimester before telling anyone, in unspoken acknowledgment of the child she had lost. When Jane came over, a Sunday afternoon around 3, to tell her mother, you waited respectfully in your bedroom, allowing them all the time they needed together. You weren't prepared for a grandmother-to-be to come bursting up the stairs and throw herself into your arms. It wasn't that TJ didn't count, she explained, but this was her daughter we're talking about here, was she right?

You realized that for the next six months your stomach will be the property of Angela Rizzoli and you couldn't be happier.

Jane had survived telling her mother, so Korsak was your responsibility, counting on the sergeant to tell the rest of the squad in a way that would keep the remarks to a minimum. If they absolutely had to make a joke, it would be at your expense, but never Jane's—that was the deal. Everyone had kept their mouths shut, aside from a few innocent inquiries as to whether Prada had a line of maternity wear and if Tyvek made crime scene suits in extra baggy, but one night at the Robber while you sipped club soda, Frost had slipped and called you the Baby Mama which made Jane spit take, and it wasn't even a '94 Chateau. (That night you Googled the term and nearly did the same.)

Jane began to do things for herself again. At night, instead of watching ballgame recaps, she analyzed the real estate market and school zone reports, finally settling on a three bedroom ranch with a backyard big enough for a full basketball court. No driveway hoops for this kid. You offered to help with the loan paperwork, which she reluctantly allowed you to, but you had trouble getting her to let you do much else for yourself. If you so much as twitched toward the kitchen, she would give you a warning look until you told her what you wanted. She wouldn't even let you come to the house until it was time to paint the nursery, and then you sat in the rocking chair she had picked out, reading to her from a stack of books about what she could expect after the expecting part was over, while she painted. The colors were a delicate light green with a golden-brown trim that would shimmer in the morning light and look like sunlight coming in through the leaves; you had never seen anything so lovely, except for Jane herself—smiling, happy again, and covered in paint.

Even though she had a new house to look after, Jane still stayed over most nights, solicitous, helpful, and kind—perfect in every way except that it wasn't you she was really interested in. Still, she weathered the unexpected emotional outbursts surprisingly well and consoled you when you had a tiny little meltdown over the premature death of a beloved pair of Jimmy Choo slingbacks which you really had thought you could manage into the third trimester. You woke up to find them sitting in the middle of the kitchen island, the heels superglued back together.

Jane came to every appointment, took you shopping each weekend, bought groceries, read labels, could tell you the difference between three brands of neo-natal vitamins, and sat in the very front row at Lamaze class. People made assumptions of course about the two of you—that was understandable and you didn't mind. It was safer that way, like being in a play for just a few months where you could have what you finally understood you had wanted all along—a life with Jane Rizzoli.

In medical school, one of your professors had used the effective if gruesome illustration of how to boil a frog, by very gradually turning up the temperature and letting the frog grow acclimated and comfortable until it was too late. That was what Jane had done to you. A little bit, every day, she had grown in your heart until it was too late to protect yourself with logic and reason. You hadn't even known what love was before you had found yourself headlong in it.

But you were logical, even where your heart was concerned. You were very clear on one thing at least—Jane was in love with her unborn child, not you. She loved you, certainly, but as her best friend, a sister, a confidant. It was only in those rare unguarded moments that you could close your eyes, blurring the picture a bit as you sank back into the cradle of her arms as the Lamaze instructor told you—_ordered_ you—to do, and allow yourself to think those whispered words were for you and not only for the child you carry.

_I love you, always and forever, I love you, I love you…_

* * *

Conclusion in Ch. 2


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I usually write under another name, but thought it would be interesting to do a Stephen King/Richard Bachman experiment – just put the story out there and let it stand on its own two feet without any associations, followers or expectations. (Pretty crazy considering how much I like reviews, but there you go.) **

**AU in that this story follows Season 3 and we don't yet know what will happen. It hits the angst meter really hard right out of the gate, so buckle your seatbelt, but I swear you'll find the sweetest, most heartwarming, romantic Rizzles resolution you could ever hope for.**

**Conclusion...**

* * *

At the shower, held at the Division One Café and presided over by Angela in all her grandmotherly glory, you had started to tell Jane that it reminded you of the customs of an Amazonian tribe which would gather together at the time of impending birth to have a collective meeting to do something that you couldn't exactly remember because the hormones associated with pregnancy had temporarily disengaged your neural network, but you were very certain that it was a relevant anecdote. In the end you didn't say anything at all because you realized that this would be a tribe of two—Jane and her child, bound together by a fierce blood loyalty that no one else would ever be able to approach. You knew that you would be somewhere in the picture, of course, a beloved aunt, the woman who made it all possible, but you knew better than to come between the lioness and her cub.

On behalf of Jane's child, you had received an endless string of gifts, none of which were necessary and each one more precious than anything your black diamond AMEX could have bought. You suspected that Angela had been sneaking onto various websites, adding things to the wish list because Jane looked even more surprised than you did, and even though you are not overly fond of surprises (certainly not where laboratory results are involved), you thought that her smile was worth every pain, ache, cramp and sleepless night.

Frost and Korsak had gone in together for a crib with more working parts than a Mustang GT, at least according to Jane and you think she probably knows what she's talking about. They handed the documentation straight to you though so you could verify all the safety ratings and give them the approving nod they were hoping for. After the last of the presents were opened and the cake had gone, except for the large corner piece Angela was saving for you because God bless that woman understood your body better than you did right now, Jane had gone rifling through the crib's box, emerging finally with something that looked like a soft spider.

"Hey, check it out." Jane was grinning, holding it up with one hand so that the arms dangled and spun. "It plays music too."

You had explained this to her several times, about how a baby's brain development can be encouraged by a variety of environmental stimuli, but you were content to let her think that she has discovered this herself.

Angela came over to inspect, as if this is an entirely new gift and not part of one already opened. "Oh, and look, you can put pictures in the slots too. That's good, you can change it. We had a Mickey Mouse Mobile for Tommy and it turns out he didn't like Mickey Mouse so he was stuck."

You put your hand on Jane's arm before she can say that her brother turned out exactly like Mickey Mouse so maybe crib mobiles were more effective than anyone realized.

"Do you want a picture now? You could put it in the mobile so the baby knows you."

Angela's camera became glued to her hand sometime around the second trimester, but you have become immune and long ceased caring how presentable you look. You expect that someday, when you can sleep again, you will find a way to log into her hard drive and delete the worst of them. You also declined to explain that a baby's facial recognition capabilities will not be able to function for some time, especially where a low resolution cell phone photo is concerned.

"Yeah." Jane brightened again, as any suggestion involving the baby made her. She sank to the floor by your chair—the throne they had called it for the shower—and sat with her head gently against your stomach. Your hand came to rest on her shoulder, fingers tangling in her hair, all that you will allow yourself today. You smiled as brightly as you could for the camera even though you know that when the picture is downloaded and sent to Jane, she will neatly crop it, as she has so many others, so that only she and the baby remain.

Naturally, two minutes before your water broke there was a hostage crisis and Jane, in typical Rizzoli fashion, managed to get herself stuck inside the building with the other hostages. Frankie drove you to the hospital and you forbade him to contact Jane or anyone else in the unit. Lives were at stake and this little one would be fine on his own. Tommy had showed up as well, panicked and well-intentioned, which had led to a misunderstanding among the delivery team that you were their surrogate, which Frankie and Tommy didn't find nearly as funny as you did.

Whether through your own preparation and sheer force of will or the cards finally landing in your favor, the delivery was as normal as could have been hoped for, and given the circumstances that had led to this, you realized that was hoping for an awful lot. When word had come that Jane was safe, that was all the permission you needed for the final push. In a single moment, the world righted itself once more and now you find yourself looking down at a baby in your arms, this tiny little version of Jane with a full head of dark hair that already has its own personality.

"Your mother will be here soon," you whisper. "And she loves you more than anything in the universe, which is exactly how much I love her."

You realize you don't know what name Jane has decided on for the baby—she had narrowed it down to seventeen—and it seems a little strange for you to be cradling this child and not know what to call him. In a sudden selfish burst, you lean close to his ear and breathe a single word to him, the name you have given him from your heart. No one else will ever know it, just as no one will ever be a part of you in the way that he is and just as Jane will never know how much you love her.

"Remember that, for always," you tell him, your first but not last advice. His tiny fists have pushed and pushed until his blue knit hat is slipping off—cranky and adorable, just like his mother. He looks at you and for a moment you would swear he nods.

"I don't know very much about relationships," you admit, "but I know I love your mother more than anything in the entire world. I know I can't have what I want with her, but you can help me with that."

You smile at his serious wrinkled face as you give him his first mission in this life.

"You're going to be our connection. Even when her life gets so busy and full with your baseball games, teacher conferences, birthday parties, and all the trouble you're going to get into, she'll still have to find at least a little bit of time for me because of who I am to you. She's trying to recover the family that she should have had and if I know her, then she's going to try to rewrite the past as well, but she won't be able to forget about me so long as we have you between us."

You say this steadily, weaving a logic ladder to convince yourself of the inevitability.

"She's never going to love me the way I love her, or look at me and say my name the way I want her to, or kiss…" You stop, catching yourself before you cry again. "But I promise, no matter what, I'll always be a part of your life, at the back of your birthday party pictures and family portraits, look for me and I'll always…."

There is a noise, not something spit out by medical equipment or soft-footed nurses, and you look up to see that for once in her life, Det. Jane Rizzoli has managed to enter a room without bursting through the door. She has been standing, listening, for some time if the expression on her face is to be believed. She has come to the hospital expecting to meet her son and finally begin the new life that had been ripped away from her; what she found was that her best friend has been lying to her. For a moment she simply stands with a sick, pole axed expression while you choke on your own words, unable to lie now that you had finally admitted the truth, and then she did what Jane did best—she ran.

The nurses arrived a moment later, possibly alerted by the sight of Jane running down the hall, but more likely by the monitor at your bedside that is screaming your distress on every gauge. They comfort you, tell you that emotional upheaval is natural, and gently but firmly take your son—because you will think of him that way, always—to his grandmother, who has been patiently waiting in the nursery.

You're too submerged in your own pain at having suddenly and stupidly lost the two people you love more than anything in a single unguarded moment to notice the doctor adding something to your IV, but you find yourself drifting slowly now, awash with exhaustion and heavy-lidded sleep.

* * *

When you awake, the room is dim, the curtains pulled and door closed. Someone is sitting beside your bed and they have Jane's hair, which is silly because Jane wouldn't be anywhere near you after what she just learned. But the voice is Jane's too and there's no other voice like that in the world. Your heart knows it like it knows its own beating.

"There were supposed to be more." Jane is holding four roses in her hand, wrapped in crinkled green paper and they look as though they had seen better days, probably sometime last week. Her low voice is cracking on every syllable. "They kinda declined my card."

"It was that changing table," you manage. "I told you to wait for a sale." You don't know what else to say.

"No, I maxed it out on this." Jane pulls a small box out of her pocket, popping back the lid. Your mind completely ceases to function at the sight of the diamond and emerald studded band. You try to call up every decision making flow chart you've ever constructed to help you understand this woman and find that none of them apply.

"What exactly is your credit limit?" is all you can think to say.

"It's also possible that, maybe, I showed them my gun," she confesses. The box is cupped in both hands, the roses abandoned now on the bed.

Something about the admission kicks your mind out of its catatonic state. If the whole point of this has been to help Jane recover, then you have succeeded admirably. She is her noble, self-sacrificing, heroic self once more. She will Do the Right Thing and marry the mother of her child, but it would simply be an obligation and after all these years and after everything you've been through together, you won't allow yourself to wind up that way, like some kind of consolation prize.

At some point you've begun saying all this out loud and Jane is looking at you with that tolerant, humoring expression she gets which makes you start to falter and she says, very lovingly, "Shut up."

"I'm sorry?"

"You may be a genius but you're the dumbest genius I know and you need to listen. I barely made it past my mother down in the lobby and the only reason she let me live is that I promised I was on my way to propose. Maura, this year has been the best worst year of my entire life, but I'd live it all over again, every single day for the rest of forever, if it winds up like this with you, right here. You're not a consolation prize, Maur, you're…you're like the f'ing Powerball with the mega number."

You've always had a fairly good opinion of yourself, one based on compliments received and of course your resume, but no one has ever called you the Powerball with the mega number before.

"I haven't been able to think straight for nearly a year, so you gotta cut me a little slack," Jane says, eyebrows furrowing. "But Jesus, woman, what would ever make me think someone like you would want to be with someone like me?"

You wonder if Jane has ever met herself.

"I know what you're thinking," she says calmly. "You're thinking that the baby saved my life and I feel I owe you, but you're wrong. You're the one who saved me. That night in the bathroom…I was going to end it then but you didn't run away. Not too many people would stand outside the bathroom door when there's a crazy cop with a gun on the other side, but you didn't back down. That kind of love is just…"

Jane doesn't put the ring away—she's holding it in front of her like a shield. "I heard what you said about just wanting to be in the picture somewhere, like that would be enough for you. But it's not enough, Maura, not for me. You're not some kind of background in my life; you're not even the frame, holding it all together, even though you do. You _are_ the picture. Without you, it's completely black and that's where I was that night until you came through the door and you held me and you wouldn't let go."

The door opens and a nurse enters. She's looking calm in a practiced way that lets you know she's not calm at all. Instantly, Jane is on her feet, moving towards the nurse who instinctively backs away. This is a smart nurse, you think.

"Is it the baby?" she blurts. Apparently even Jane isn't sure of his name yet.

"Your baby is perfectly fine." The nurse says this in the same way that hostage negotiators tell the crazy person that all the money is on the way in unmarked, non-sequential bills. Because her life depends on it. "It's Dr. Isles."

You're momentarily relieved—it's just you, that's all right. You were only the Pod, the vessel, and so long as the baby is safe and healthy, that's all Jane will need, and Jane is all that matters.

"Wh-what about Maura?" Jane begins to rattle off disorders and diseases, the kinds of things that haven't killed pregnant women since Victorian times, and you wonder exactly what she's been up to with her web surfing late at night.

"We're still monitoring her signs and her heart rate is fluctuating rapidly. Is everything all right?"

Jane slowly turns back to you, that one eyebrow raised. You realize that she isn't looking at your stomach, where her eyes have been fixed for the last nine months. She's looking at you, deep into your eyes with a kind of intensity she usually reserves for interrogating suspects.

She leans close, pushing back some unauthorized strand of your hair and tucking it with the tip of one finger. Her nail lightly scrapes the skin behind your ear and you think your next paper will be on anecdotal evidence for spontaneous human combustion. "Wow," she murmurs. "And I haven't even touched you yet."

The heart monitor lets out a desperate, yelping wail. "There it goes again," the nurse says in confusion.

"You might want to check the power supply," you suggest, unable to take your eyes off Jane. "The equipment must be malfunctioning. I've never felt better in my life."

The nurse chuckles. "Epidural hasn't worn off yet?"

Jane smiles. She is better than any epidural, you think. "Hey, do you think…the baby…we could…?" She makes a cradling gesture with her arms. Apparently she gets incoherent just thinking about him, the way you do when thinking about her.

As soon as the nurse leaves, Jane is back on one knee again beside the bed. "I need you to know something." She's serious once more and no one can be serious like she can be. "I know I haven't been myself for the last year. I understand if you don't trust me to be making decisions, but this isn't adrenaline talking or something I'm going to wake up and regret. I think this was always there somewhere in my head, but there was all this other stuff that had to get taken care of so I could see…so I could _see_ you. That's why I left, because I couldn't believe how stupid I'd been and everything I'd put you through, and now I can have everything I didn't know I wanted, gift wrapped and handed to me, like the universe is saying I'm so incredibly sorry, here's a refund and a bonus check."

Jane swallows and makes a little nudging motion with the ring again. "I know the way I've treated you this last year hasn't been very good and I've taken you for granted, but I swear it won't be like that and…"

"Shush," you say, knowing this might be the only time for the rest of your life that you can say that safely. "Let's see how that ring fits." Somehow you're not even surprised that it fits on the first try.

Jane awkwardly tries to sit on the edge of the bed and you make room for her. You've waited this long—you don't care if you have to saw off one of the hand rails, there will be a way for her to fit next to you, but it takes a minute as she has to dig out her phone from her blazer, which you see now has two bullet holes in it that you will need to ask her about later.

"I want a picture," she says.

You smile. She does get a few things from Angela after all. "This baby is going to have the most well documented life since Ken Burns." She doesn't ask you who Ken Burns is which is a shame because for once the joke is very funny. "What are you going to name him?" you ask.

That gets her attention. "I think after everything you've been through that you should get to pick. Just, please, nothing that will get him beaten up." You make a note to look up your son's name on Google tonight to be sure there aren't any connotations that you missed.

Jane leans back, pulling you to her, and even though it's not the first time, for some reason it feels like nothing has ever happened in the entire universe before this moment. Her arm is around you, your head in the crook of her shoulder as she's holding the phone at just the right angle.

"Are you practicing?" you joke. "They haven't even brought him back yet."

"We'll have a million family pictures," she says, "but I want one of us, right now. Where it all begins."

The light steadies, the camera focuses.

Jane says your name, quietly, like a prayer.

You turn your head and she kisses you for the first time.

The heart monitor short circuits in a shower of sparks.

The camera clicks.

Your life begins.


End file.
